Copter, military grade screen protection for iPhone

The selection of protective gear such as display films and covers for your phone is now days almost endless. One of these bit more spectacular products come from a brand called Copter, which make the bold promise of “Life time warranty” on their product. Nice! The product is a protective film which is applied onto your phone to function as a slim and almost invisible coating. Apparently the Copter screen protector material is “military grade” of some kind and originally used for coating helicopter rotor blades with, hence the name. The application kit comes either in a full body or a front only version and includes a spray can of application liquid, squeegee, a small micro fiber cloth, instructions and the actual protective film.

I bought the iPhone4 full body kit which retails for around €25. The front only kit retails for about €12 if you prefer that. Applying the full body kit was pretty easy, at least on the iPhone 4 since it’s basically just 2 completely flat surfaces. The actual mounting process took me about 30 minutes in total for both sides, but then I was very careful and accurate while doing it. After that you have to leave it to dry and harden over night before you can put it in your pocket.

The final result turned out pretty nice even though it’s not completely “invisible”. The fit is perfect and if you took your time during the application process to make sure there are no bubbles or dust underneath the protective film, it will be hard to see that it’s there. The touch and feel of the phone is totally different with the protective coating and I did not like the somewhat rubbery feeling it gets. The touch screen response is not affected in any way and works just as fine as without the Copter film, but sliding your finger across the screen as you often do on an iPhone, generates more friction and also a slight rough feeling. With the full body Copter film on the iPhone it makes the whole phone less slippery and provides a much more secure grip, but also makes the whole phone sensation feel less luxurious.

The protective functionality is great and I was deliberately trying to make scratches on the surface with keys and coins without any damage done what so ever! When I had been using my iPhone with the Copter film for a few weeks, taking the phone out of my pocket surely 20-30 times a day, the protective film slowly started to peel on the corners. When that started to happen it didn’t take long until the corners started to collect pocket lint and peel even more. Up to this point I had been using it for about 3 weeks and I was expecting it to last much longer than that. Over all I think the product is hyped and overpriced. The idea is good but poorly executed.